


Nightmare of Insanity

by Stargazer2369



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gods, Immortals, Life - Freeform, Old Gods, Other, Paperwork, Servants of the gods, harbinger needs a hug, life and death are crazy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stargazer2369/pseuds/Stargazer2369
Summary: Life and Death are small children being looked after by their minions. They can't do any of their duties. What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Death/Life





	Nightmare of Insanity

**Author's Note:**

> Cast:  
> Life - Immortal being who governs life.  
> Death - Immortal being who governs death.  
> Harbinger - A Minion, head collector of souls and lives.  
> Fenner - A Minion, in charge of paperwork.  
> Sorenan - A Minion, in charge of mundane things such as tours, leaflets, advertising and bills.

“What are you doing?” asks the child. Harbinger looks up from her job. Her face is calm in the way a storm is, and there is danger in her eyes, but the boy just smiles. It’s nice to have someone unafraid of her, for a change.

“I am cleaning.” Her voice betrays no emotion, and the crow sitting on her shoulder squawks, like a warning to back off. The child either ignores or does not recognise the look.

“Cool! What are you cleaning?”

“...Life.”

She walks away, and the child puzzles over her words for a few moments. His mind is too innocent to yet comprehend the implications. Harbinger walks down the street, which is very grey and lifeless, with a few solitary newspapers flapping up and down in the wind, and a reward for a small dog whose face has been washed off in the rain. She walks onwards, ignoring the people who veer away from her—they do not know her, but they are wary, and rightfully so. But she knows her destination, and she will not stray from it.

The house at the end of Blind Man’s Grove (though the street sign appears at first glance to say Grave) is not what you would have expected of the residence of death. It is a modest cottage, indistinguishable from the rest of the houses on the street other than by the large poplar tree in the front garden, and the abundance of crows that often gather there, yet people avoid it, and fear it, just like people fear its divine occupants.

Harbinger drops off her bag on the table and shoves her report onto the growing pile of paperwork—Fenner has been falling behind on his work, that or he’s taken a holiday, which would be just like him.

“Back already?” chirps the girl, beaming at her. She’s sat on the table, swinging her legs back and forth, and Harbinger resists the urge to sigh.

“Where’s Fenner?”

“What, no hello for little ol’ me?”

She’s very chipper today, which can’t mean anything other than pain for Harbinger. The two immortal children tend to make more mess when insufferably cheerful.

“Where’s Fenner?” she asks again.

Life shrugs. “Dunno. I think he went on vacation.”

Harbinger hisses frustratedly, and debates making Life do it. She decides it isn’t worth it.

“Any problems?” she asks, swinging her feet onto the table. Harbinger winces again. She hates babysitting.

“No, everything went smoothly. It’s in the report.”

Life pulls a face. Harbinger can emphasise: paperwork really is a nightmare, and with Fenner gone, she’s the one who’s going to have to do it. Hurrah.

“Hi!”

The other one is coming, which promises an evening of no rest and much pain for Harbinger. Death is slightly less… lively… than Life, but he’s still an immortal being in the body of a small child. Has Harbinger mentioned how much she despises babysitting?

“Watcha doin’?”

“Dying on the inside,” deadpans Harbinger.

“Sounds painful,” says Life. The two skip away together, probably to mess something else up. Harbinger debates whether slamming her head against the table would be an overreaction, and whether it would cause the paperwork to become even messier than it is already. Eventually, she decides it isn’t worth it, and sits—there are multiple bills, which she puts away for Sorenan to deal with.

Eventually, she flops backwards, wondering what would happen if she just lost the will to live. She doesn’t quite think it’s possible, because of the curse.

The curse.

Oh, how she hates it. So, so, so much. The curse—and she doesn’t even know who cast it so that she can have them hung, drawn and quartered. The curse that has made her life hell, the curse that has trapped Life and Death in the bodies of small children, and left their minions to take over their duties.

Harbinger does not like children—they’re too messy and she hates mess. If she could only figure out why this is happening—did they annoy someone so much that they were cursed? Somehow, she doesn’t doubt it. She probably could have dealt with it, laughed it off even, if the curse had not trapped them along with it—Fenner, Sorenan and her, stuck looking after a couple of kids.

Torture.

At least she didn’t have to be stuck around them for the whole day—she did have to do almost all the work that Death usually did.

There was a knock on the door, and Harbinger got up, grumbling. It was about time Sorenan got back, and then they could switch (she firmly ignored the fact that she had done nothing in the way of looking after the kids. Sorenan enjoyed it more than she did anyway). But the person standing behind the door was not Sorenan.

“YOU!”


End file.
